New York Knicks Officially Announce Hiring Of Jeff Hornacek

The New York Knicks announced the hiring of Jeff Hornacek to be their head coach. After weeks of rumors, they made it official.

The New York Knicks officially hired Jeff Hornacek to be their head coach after weeks of speculation.

They announced the news via the team’s Twitter page.

Knicks’ fans can get rid of that tiny little bit of doubt they know they still had about a Kurt Rambis 11th hour hire. Even Phil Jackson couldn’t pull that off.

Instead, he made concessions not just to his owner but to his thoughts on the game of basketball.

After weeks of talk about the tremendous mutual respect between Jackson and Hornacek, the team president praised his unlikely new hire:

“Jeff has a tremendous basketball acumen and possesses strong leadership skills,” Jackson said in a statement. “During his career as both a player and coach, he has demonstrated the ability to elevate the game.”

Seriously though, how many articles are we going to see about how his Phoenix teams played fast? If he doesn’t play fast in New York, the poor guy will get killed.

The new head coach had his own feelings about taking over such the Knicks and working for Jackson.

“I am extremely excited and honored to be the next coach of such an historic franchise,” said Hornacek, who will be introduced at a press conference at the team facility on Friday afternoon. “I look forward to working with Phil — a coach and teacher of the game I have admired for many years — and collaborating with him and our staff to take this team to the level that Knicks fans expect.”

This announcement comes a day after the report of Hornacek’s contract figures (per Ian Begley), three years, $15 million. Not coincidentally, the same amount of years remaining on Jackson’s deal to run the team.

It appears that the fates of Hornacek and Jackson are linked. Even Jackson can’t get away with hiring two failures at head coach right out of the gate. If anyone should be an expert in that area, it’s him.

There’s still plenty of time before we can know if the Hornacek/Jackson marriage was a good idea, but for now they are both saying all the right things.